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- 🏆 Our Top Issues & Teacher-Favorite Resources!
🏆 Our Top Issues & Teacher-Favorite Resources!
Top 5 issues of the year including our top digital tools, top 10 clicked teacher resources, and a look back at our favorite Teachflix Junior video!
Karly Moura & Christina Sciarrotto
May 26, 2026
👋🏼 Goodbye for now!
What’s New in K-2 will be taking a break for the summer but don’t worry we will be back with fresh new ideas and resources for our favorite K-2 teachers in August!
But before we head off into the sunset let’s dive into our last issue of the ‘25-’26 school year…
As we approach the end of the school year, it’s the perfect time for leaning into that fresh perspective and celebrating everything we’ve accomplished together. From finding creative ways to shake those wiggles out to building fine motor skills and fostering social-emotional learning, this community has shown up for early childhood education in the most beautiful ways.
This week, we are taking a trip down memory lane to look at the exact topics and tools that resonated most with our community. Consider this your curated, ultimate "best of" toolkit as you cross the finish line!
Enjoy that break!
-Karly & Christina
Inside:
💡 A new online course!
🤔 Reflecting on the first year of What’s New in K-2
❤️ Share your ideas with us!
😄 Giggle of the Week: Run, don’t walk towards a much needed break!
🗑️ Learn NotebookLM with Matt Miller this summer
Teachers are excited about Google’s NotebookLM … an app you can use to create incredible resources like audio overviews, video overviews, slides, infographics and more …
… and they’re all based on the sources YOU give it (articles, websites, your textbook chapter, etc.).
It can take a bit to understand how it works, but once you do, it can become a workhorse to make resources for you and keep your students engaged.
We just released our newest online course — Getting Started with NotebookLM for Teachers!
🎁🎁 BONUS: It’s on sale for 25% off through the end of May!
Here’s how to enroll:
Make sure you’ve joined the free Ditch That Textbook online community. (That’s where we’re hosting the course. Do this first!)
After you’re a member of the community, click here to view the course and check out.
Get the course. Get started. See results!
❤️ Share your ideas with us!
Was there something you wish we shared more of? Something you wish we did less? Is there a certain topic you’d love us to focus on next year?
Please let us know!
Reflecting on the first year of What’s New in K-2!
Image created with NotebookLM
🌟 Top 5 Newsletter Issues of the Year
Based on the highest percentage of opened emails, these five editions captured the community's attention more than any others:
📱 Our favorite K-2 digital tools (Part 1) (Oct 14, 2025) – 53.54% Open Rate. Our absolute #1 most opened issue! Teachers loved discovering new student-facing platforms to capture student voice and simplify interactive practice.
👩🏾💻 Teaching digital citizenship: 5 ready-to-use activities for K-2 (Oct 7, 2025) – 53.42% Open Rate. Helping our youngest learners build safe, responsible online habits early on was a massive priority for our community.
🍎 Quick & easy back-to-school activities for K-2 teachers (Aug 5, 2025) – 52.03% Open Rate. Low-prep icebreakers and routines to kick off the school year with confidence.
📝 No-prep sub plans: Be ready for anything (Aug 26, 2025) – 51.97% Open Rate. Back-to-school season stress was real, and having emergency plans ready to go was a massive relief.
🤝 Make parents your greatest allies (Sep 23, 2025) – 51.96% Open Rate. Building that crucial home-to-school connection right from the start of the year.
🏆 Top 10 Resources Shared This Year
Out of hundreds of links sent to your inboxes, these 10 resources earned the highest number of unique clicks from your fellow K-2 teachers:
🔗 Virtual Field Trip Choice Board – Our #1 most-clicked resource of the entire year! An incredibly engaging, low-prep digital board filled with virtual field trips you can use tomorrow.
🔗 Subscriber Appreciation Celebration Pack – Our subscriber appreciation digital gift was our second most clicked resource. We’re glad you liked it!
🔗 Secret Agent Jr. Codebreaker Halloween Pack – An absolute favorite for building fine motor skills and logic skills during the autumn season.
🔗 K-2 Virtual Escape Rooms Collection – The master hub for gamified problem-solving adventures built specifically for early elementary students.
🔗 Pumpkin Patch Virtual Escape Room – An autumn staple that combined math and ELA standards with an immersive seasonal storyline.
🔗 Printable Brain Break Movement Cards – Pocket-sized cards perfect for instant physical transitions when the class needs a quick energy reset.
🔗 FCPS Morning Meeting & Closing Circle Choice Boards – Incredible routine builders supporting social-emotional learning from the very start to the end of the day.
🔗 Introducing the Hour of Code in K-2 – A ready to use lesson to introduce young students to the foundations of coding and computer science.
🔗 PBS LearningMedia: Earth’s Day and Night From Space – An eye-opening science visual that captivated our little space explorers during our science units.
🔗 Printable Halloween Activity Packet – A highly popular download used to reinforce core elementary foundational skills during the spookiest month of the year.
📺 Top Teaching with Teachflix Junior Video
Featured Video: Not-So-Creepy Creatures Halloween Guessing Game
Our community absolutely loved using interactive media to channel high-energy seasonal excitement into meaningful learning! This popular interactive guessing game video was a massive hit for building critical thinking and listening skills.
🤭 Giggle of the Week
Enjoy that break!
Source educationtothecore.com